14.
Bear
D ahlia glared at me as I got off my bike and walked toward her. I could feel her anger and hate without her even having to say a single word to me. I shook my head and dropped my bag at my feet when I got close enough for us to talk.
“How did you—” she began.
“Because Rocky was my friend. We stayed here a couple of times. I figured if I knew about this place then you did too.”
She glanced at my bag and then back up to me. “I don’t want you here.”
I nodded in agreement. “I know, and I’m sorry,” I lied, “but there’s shit going down and someone needs to be here in case what happened at the house happens again.”
Dahlia scowled, tucking her short black hair behind one of her ears. She’d done a good job of coloring it, and I had to bite back my smile when I remembered the first time she had cut and colored it like this, and how excited she had been. The memory flooded me so much I could practically hear her excited chatter, the summer heat on our skin, the scent of her perfume in my nose. I was back there with her once again.
“I don’t want you inside the cabin,” she relented, and I nodded. “I’m serious. You’re not staying inside with me.”
“I know. There’s a tent in there somewhere—I’ll take that.”
We stared at each other for long moments, a silent war battling between us. One that I wouldn’t let her win. She wanted to push me away, but I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Where is it?” she said, annoyance in her tone. I took a step toward her, and she held up a hand. “Tell me and I’ll get it for you.”
“I’m not sure where he would have put it,” I said honestly. Almost honestly.
“Guess you’re staying on the ground then.”
I couldn’t stop the smile from my face, and I chuckled. “Babe, there’s bears out here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She crossed her arms in front of her, continuing to stare me down. “Guess you better hope you don’t snore and attract them then.”
She turned to leave, and I strode forward. “Dahlia, come on. All I want is the damned tent.”
She turned back around, her eyes widening when she saw how close I was. With a shake of her head, she looked me up and down. “Stay out of my way, Matt. Sleep on the ground or leave, I don’t really care, but you’re not coming inside this cabin. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
I sighed with growing irritation. “Fine, try the small bedroom, in the closet. I think that’s where he used to put it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So you did know where it was.”
I shrugged. “It’s just a guess.”
“Yeah, I’m a natural brunette,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Listen—”
I smiled. “I’m listening.”
Dahlia pointed a finger in my direction. “I don’t trust you, Matt. I don’t know you anymore. And I don’t want you here. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another cocky biker asshole and nothing more. Don’t think that any history we had will change my opinion of you or your stupid gang.”
“It’s a club,” I corrected with a scowl. There was nothing that pissed me off more than people calling the Kings a gang. We were not a gang. We were a club. A group of men who all loved to ride. That’s how it had all started: two wheels, hot metal, the roar of an engine, and the open road.
She rolled her eyes. “If it speaks like an asshole and it looks like an asshole, then it’s an asshole, no matter how much you protest.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that you and your so-called club got my husband killed. And you and your club almost got me killed. I don’t know what kind of club leaves a trail of dead bodies in its wake, but it’s a dangerous one, and I don’t want any part in it.” Her hands were on her small hips and she stared at me, her mouth pinched with anger.
“We do some good too—” I said, feeling the need to defend my club.
She scowled. “How? Helping kids to deal drugs so they can pay their way through college? Providing jobs in that strip club of yours because hey, at least that’s better than being on the streets, right?”
“Do you really think that I would be in the Kings if that’s what it was about? You know me, babe. You know what sort of man I am, and you know what I’m about.” I paused, taking a breath so I didn’t lose my cool. “You know what my heart is like…so you tell me…is that what I’m about?”
She paused, looking momentarily unsure of herself before the mask dropped back down again. “Whatever. I do not care, Matt. I do not want to know about any of it. I didn’t care when it was Alex, and I sure don’t with you.”
I gave up, reluctantly. At least for now. Rocky had often spoken about his wife and how she hated his lifestyle. How she had never wanted anything to do with the club, and I knew it was a losing battle, and one I was happy to quit talking about for the moment. If Rocky had tried for all those years and gotten nowhere, I wasn’t sure if my luck would fare any better in just one night. And yet I knew I would keep on trying.
The Kings did some shady shit, there was no doubt about that, but we also did plenty good too. I would make her see it, one way or another.
Just maybe not today, while she was still pissed at me.
No, today was all about keeping her safe and getting her to trust me again. The getting her to trust me part was all for me and nothing to do with club business. The keeping her safe part was a little of both.
JD hadn’t wanted me to come up here; he’d wanted to send Smoke and a couple of the prospects, but I’d managed to convince him that all that would do was scare her into running further from the club when what we needed to do was pull her in closer. Sending one man— me —was the safest option for the club, because no one would suspect that I would be the one protecting Rocky’s wife since I’d only just left the hospital. I’d lost a lot of blood, but the wound was barely anything. Certainly nothing that was going to stop me from protecting Dahlia.
Nothing and no one was going to stop me from protecting her.
“Are you listening to me?” she bit out, pulling me back to the present.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grumbled quietly to herself, looking unconvinced. “I’ll go look for the tent, but if I can’t find it then it’s your problem, not mine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“All the ‘ma’am’ business. The ‘babe’ business. All the sweet talking, like you think by being nice that’s going to change anything, Matt.” She stared at me with fury in her features.
I shrugged noncommittedly. “I’m not doing anything. I’m just—”
“You can’t change what happened, okay? You left me, Matt. Twenty years ago you left me, and you promised you would be back and would explain everything, but you never came back.” Her voice tightened as she spoke until she had to stop and clear her throat. I wasn’t sure if it was sadness or anger, but either way I hated it for her. I hated that I had done that to her. Especially right now, with everything else going on.
“I can explain now, if you’ll listen,” I offered helplessly.
She shook her head furiously. “You never explained anything, and I never heard from you again, Matt. So now you don’t get to come back into my life—at the second worst moment of my life and start calling me ‘babe.’ I hate you!”
I winced at those three words. Words that wounded me worse than any gunshot ever could.
“Dahlia…” I tried as gently as I could.
“It’s too late, don’t you get it. I built a life for myself, without you .” She glared angrily, fire in her golden eyes. “I fell in love with someone else. I married someone else. And if the club wouldn’t have taken him from me, then I would have had kids with someone else. I would have lived happily ever after with someone else…anyone else but you.”
Her words bit into my skin like a scorpion sting, and I winced from the pain of them, staggering back like she had physically shoved me. Her eyes were glassy with tears, but her expression was red-hot anger, not sadness. I knew that whatever she said, I deserved, and I waited, bloodied heart on the table, for more of them to cut me down. Because all I could think was that while she was saying them, no matter how much they hurt, at least she was talking to me. At least she was acknowledging me.
“I don’t need you, Matt, and I certainly don’t want you, not anymore.” She practically spat the words out, and I grimaced. “I need to go back inside; I have a husband to mourn, in case you’ve forgotten. You might remember him, apparently he was one of your friends.”
Dahlia turned and walked back inside, slamming the door behind her. Birds in the surrounding trees took flight and leaves fell to the ground from the echo of their exit. I stared at the closed door, feeling like a piece of shit. Because she was right. Everything she said was right.
Rocky had been one of my friends. We had drank together. Rode together. Protected each other. What the fuck was I thinking…moving in on his wife while his body was cold in the morgue. Body riddled with bullet wounds and scorch marks from what had happened…and what had happened was my fault. My hands were bloodied from his death.
But this was Dahlia… my Dahlia.
Twenty years ago we had planned a life together—before Rocky. Before the club. Before any of it. She had been mine. She had been my future, and I wasn’t just going to walk away from her.
Dahlia had been my future until life had stepped in and taken her from me. Surely it was more than kismet, her being here again. Surely it meant something that she had been there on the edges of my life all this time.
I couldn’t properly assemble all the pieces in my head; my newfound sobriety was making my thoughts cloudy, my own grief still ever present. But knowing that Dahlia was here, that she needed my protection, gave me a purpose. It gave me hope, for the first time in as far back as I could remember…I could see a future for myself.
Rocky was dead and gone, and I was here, God damn it.
Dahlia had been my one and only, and at one time I had been hers. I knew the facts, and I knew right from wrong, and yet I knew that it didn’t make any difference.
I still loved her, and deep down I had a feeling that she still loved me too. Because the sort of love we had had didn’t just disappear. It lived on forever. It lived on because it was the real thing.
She had said that losing Rocky had been the second worst moment of her life, and I knew that meant my leaving had to have been the first. I just needed her to find her way back to that love for me again.